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How to make your Android phone into an automatic Tesla hotspot

With Wifi now supported on the Tesla Model S, many people are using their mobile phones as a hotspot to provide internet access for the car in place of the built in 3G.

However, remembering to turn on and off your mobile phones hotspot can be hard and if you forget to turn it off you can get stuck with a drained phone battery.

To avoid these issues I have used a number of tools to setup an automated way of turning my Android phones hotspot on/off when it senses that it is in/out of the car.

I admit that I am a geek and that I prefer an app called "Tasker" because it has many more things to program. However that app is not for the everyday user so I have included instructions below for an simpler app called "Locale". Plug-ins are compatible between both Locale and Tasker so if you invest in a few 99 cent plug-ins and later decide to switch to Tasker for even more control, your plug-in will still work.

Launch Locale. You will see a main "Situations" screen. We will be making new situations for Tesla Hotspot On and Tesla Hotspot Off. The order of the situations in the list can be important if there are any conflicting settings, then the one highest on the list with take precedent.
Touch "Add Situation" and name your new situation "Tesla Hotspot On"
Now you need to add the conditions that will trigger this situation to run. You will see a list of built in conditions and scrolling down will show the plugins you have installed including the bluetooth plug-in we want to use.
Select the "Bluetooth" condition from the Plug-in list, and configure the connected device to be your Tesla Model S and "Connected/Disconnected" state to be Connected. Select the checkmark.

Now that you have successfully configured the connected condition, it time to configure the action you want this condition to trigger. Select "Add Setting" and choose the Wifi Hotspot Plugin.
Configure the Wifi Hotspot Plugin to turn your hotspot on.
Your completed situation should look like this. If it does push the check box to return to the main situations list screen
This next step is optional but I prefer to only turn on the hotspot when the phone is in the car AND connected to a power source so I won't drain my phone battery. If you want to add this extra condition select "Add condition" again and this time pick the "Charger" condition from the list, and configure it for
Now that you have created a "Tesla Hotspot On" situation you need to do the same thing again for a "Tesla Hotspot Off" situation. This time select a Disconnected Bluetooth condition and configure the Wifi Hotspot Plugin setting to turn off
When you are done you should see both Tesla Hotspot situations on your list. The blue ball indicated which conditions are on at the moment.
Try walking to your car (optionally plugin in your phone) and see the blue ball switch from Off to On, and your hotspot should automatically switch from Off to On.
Walk away from the car (or optionally just disconnect the phone charger) and the Off situation should fire.

And then you have to remember to unlock your phone, swipe again, and tap again when you leave the car.

The point if this setup isn't that turning hotspots on and off is hard. It's to automate the task so you don't forget and end up with a dead phone battery.

I use the setup to add some extra rules into the mix like checking if the phone is charging, or turning off the hotspot if the battery gets below 10%.

The really cool stuff is all the other things you can do, like automatically start Audible or Spotify when you're in the car, or using the HTTP Plug in to start and stop the charger on the Tesla, or forward your Google voice number to your home phone only when you are actually there.

If I can figure out how to control the air suspension I will make a situation that will raise the car to the "high" suspension setting every time I enter my kids school driveway.

I use the setup to add some extra rules into the mix like checking if the phone is charging, or turning off the hotspot if the battery gets below 10%.

The really cool stuff is all the other things you can do, like automatically start Audible or Spotify when you're in the car, or using the HTTP Plug in to start and stop the charger on the Tesla, or forward your Google voice number to your home phone only when you are actually there.

If I can figure out how to control the air suspension I will make a situation that will raise the car to the "high" suspension setting every time I enter my kids school driveway.

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Excellent effort on that thread with all the screen captures. I have verizon and a Motorola MAXX HD and the have a specific settings to enable wi-fi hotspots (you get 10 with each phone). An action to turn on a wi-fi hotspot does not seem to exist in SmartActions (like locale).

Looks like this wifi hotspot enabler works on various devices including mine. FYI in case this helps someone out.

Turns your Android phone into a free WiFi Hotspot - no rooting or tether plan required. You can connect from any computers or tablets or even game console. Access Point is infrastructure mode with WPA2 security. FoxFi usage is covered under the same phone data plan you have and no tether plan needed. This saves you $20/month from your carrier.

Perhaps it's not clear from the title but this thread is all about "automatic" (i.e. no touch, no swipe) method for turning the hotspot on and off. That allows you to leave the phone in your pocket or purse.

I will keep using Tasker because I have it programed to automate a bunch of things but if someone just needs Hotspot automatically on/off (the purpose of this thread) then this looks like a perfect solution! @steve841 let us know after a while using this app if it continues to work seamlessly for you.

--update--

Description says "AutoTether has been designed as a companion app for the Automatica car USB device, to keep it synced while you're driving around."
Can you confirm that it works standalone?

"You can avoid the tethering fee by downloading a third party app from an application store. If you tether using Verizon's service, you will still be charged the $20 a month to access Mobile Broadband Connect. So you need to be proactive and find an app that you can use."

What would be really nice is if the Tesla app could automatically enable wi-fi tethering. In my case I use FoxFi since I have unlimited 4G with Verizon but don't feel like paying an extra $30/month for tethering support which normally I only rarely use. I just wish they'd fix the location bug in the Android app where often the map view is not shown.

A quick question, I like the concept of turning on and off the tethering when you get in and out of the car and I don't have Locale to test this, but what happens when you get out of your Tesla and want to turn on your tethering on, at say a meeting? Won't the Tesla off just turn your wifi back off since you are not connected to your Bluetooth and charging?

A quick question, I like the concept of turning on and off the tethering when you get in and out of the car and I don't have Locale to test this, but what happens when you get out of your Tesla and want to turn on your tethering on, at say a meeting? Won't the Tesla off just turn your wifi back off since you are not connected to your Bluetooth and charging?

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Good question. You have a few options.

1) turn off Locale and start your hotspot as you did before
2) create another higher priority situation that outranks "Tesla Hotspot Off" and matches the situation of your meeting or the orientation of your phone. For example, you can add a generic "Hotspot On" situation which triggers on the phone orientation sensor. If the phone is facedown on the table, and connected to USB (or in Bluetooth range of your laptop), then start a hotspot. Whatever you think is unlikely to happen unless you knowingly position the phone to trigger the situation to fire.

Honestly I use #1 for most adhoc hotspot creation and #2 for repeating situations like when I am at the cottage were we have no internet access except for my hotspot.